Saturday, March 22, 2008

In this whole affair with PZ getting kicked out at Expelled, one of the things that is glossed over by the creationists is that tickets weren't necessary. But apparently some people got them. Stuart Blessman said,

Our head pastor [of his campus church] was recently offered two pairs of tickets to go see an advanced screening of Ben Stein’s “Expelled”...

Orly? So religious organizations get invited? I still wonder why Creationists are confused when others see this an an inherently religious message.

Especially when, of the 18 screenings listed on the sign up page, 13 are explicitly religious organizations. The rest are colleges. I'm not familiar with them, but anyone want to take a bet as to whether they're going to be religious universities or hosted by campus churches? Yeah. I wouldn't tag that bet either.

Regardless, aside from the bit about the tickets, it looks like Blessman's account is a bit twisted. In the main body of the post (which was appended later), he says,

Management of the movie theatre saw a man apparently hustling and bothering several invited attendees, apparently trying to disrupt the viewing or sneak in.

Yet in the comment Blessman had left earlier, he had said,

He didn’t cause a disruption per se; he was kindly escorted out.

So which is it Stu? Was there any way that it could be inferred that he was being disruptive? Didn't think so.

Additionally for someone that claims to have been "literally 3 feet away", he didn't seem to listen too well, given that the claims,

the man [PZ] certainly didn’t identify himself.

Yet PZ even admits that the security guard asked him if he was PZ Myers and PZ affirmed that he was!

I'm also skeptical of Stu's comprehension skills given that he claims

...the film’s main point was that Intelligent Design should be taught in conjunction with Evolution.

Really? Everything I've heard about the film, from much more experienced reviewers and a good deal of other sources, is that the main thrust of the film is "ZOMG! We're persecuted by evil atheist scientists who are directly responsible for the Holocaust and Planned Parenthood!" Stu even affirms this, saying,

In fact, Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together. Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

Sounds like he's switching his story again...

So Stu can't figure out whether or not PZ cause a "disturbance", can't remember if had revealed his identity, and can't even figure out what the movie's main thrust is. Yet the Creationist camp has been all over this inconsistent account. Really is about their standard isn't it?

3 comments:

You know, the Nazi thing is such a cheap shot. Virtually every creationist film uses it. The easiest way to vllify anything without making an actual argument is to cut rapidly between your oppoent and stock footage of Hitler.

Isn't it ironic, though? Hitler's version of the future was to thin diversity. Acts of genocide. Master human race. Sounds rather ANTI-evolution to me. Diversity is any species' strong suit. Genocide can only be a recipe for extinction.

The way to counter Ben Stein’s little movie is to make him look like a conspiracy nut: Mr. Stein thinks there is a global conspiracy by scientists all over the world to attack Intelligent Design. He thinks scientists meet and conspire how to silence Intelligent Design proponents and other Creationists. Ben Stein is conspiracy nut.